A Hunter’s Love Story

His love of hunting began in 1951 but began to peak just after June of ’72. And, for the record, after one simple, innocent, somewhat noncommittal kiss. A gesture of definite amorous meaning which comes very hard from the lips of a remarkably tough outdoorsman.

Just writing the word, “kiss” here came after a lengthy reluctant period of contemplation during which he scoured his one-million-word synonym finder for an appropriate substitute. As evidenced above, he couldn’t find one less mushy or masculine since “smooch” has little, make that, no place in his life or vocabulary regardless of how pedestrian both may indeed be.

The infamous kiss aforementioned (reluctantly!) was placed upon the lips of this outdoor writer’s wife, but before she was “his wife,” some 24 years ago. To him it meant, simply, “Geesh, your lips are pretty and soft,” but to her? Obviously, it meant, and right here and now he’s fighting this sentence with great gusto, “You must love me and you must want to marry me?” And though he may not have meant exactly that at the time, he eventually did marry his lady friend of one year. Enter here, June 1, 1973. And shortly thereafter, his love of hunting intensified to the point where he took it more seriously that a brain surgeon might take operating on his very own four-pound gray mass! Now that’s focused concentration!

Confinement with any one person can do things to the mind, to the quality of mental health, and has this prodding effect akin to being stuck in the posterior with a dull ice pick. Left dangling there until something could be done about it, this man chose to hunt everything the game commission would allow and at any time of year.

Now it’s important to note, this hunter/outdoor writer decided in 1980 to cultivate a moustache which he still wears as a sort of symbol, a badge of courage, a status-quo, actually, among his writing peers. And, because of his relentless and constant hunting, being gone from dawn until dusk each and every day, sometimes dawn to dawn, his wife of now 7 years never noticed the bristly growth until about Christmas of ’81-give or take (excuse him here) a kiss. Whew! At the time of the momentous discovery, his wife, a former schoolteacher and kind and descriptive soul she is, began addressing him, “Bwana Masharubu.” That, in African Swahili, the lingua franca of East Africa, perhaps the most colorfully expressive language of the world, means, “Mr. Moustache.”

In a sort of good-natured, romantic, retaliatory action, with a sprinkling of jealousy for her acute command of the world’s tongues, he would always leave the house after touching her cheek with his lips (notice he avoided “kiss” here?) saying something such as, “I go kuota moto mzuri ndito,” which, when translated from Swahili, means “I’m going to dream by the fire beautiful, young girl.” In this case, camp or hunter’s fire. This loving approach was, of course, a sort of diversionary measure or, call it hunter’s psychology-or flattery-both of which are vital to Man’s arsenal.

Time after countless time, he’d return home with his wild bounty, oft referred to as “trophies,” and she, with hers. His was always of the fin, fur or feather variety in the raw, while hers were of a more finished, sophisticated leather, already tanned or bleached and shaped neatly into pocketbook or footwear.

He took his bounty with one of the numerous weapons. She took hers with a single “weapon,” notorious for its effectiveness, both long and short range. Not to mention simple, with regard to its construction and function.

This “weapon” of hers was simply a small, rectangular-shaped piece of plastic with his name and number in pimply, raised figures. It did, especially to his eyes, look formidable. And indeed, was a menacing object in the hands of anyone with her ability. Not once did she have to sight it in, tinker with it morning, noon and night, save wiping the smudge of her thumb print from its Gold Card lettering, or load it, adjust it, clean it, or, much to his dismay, aim the vicious little thing! The clerks statewide did that for her and it never failed to find the 10-ring, or bullseyes which, of course, was inside of one of those ugly machines with the sliding top. Yes indeed, her “weapon” was right on, right out of the envelope, and could be counted (no pun!) on to hit its target year in, year out. And he, the exemplary, poverty-stricken outdoor writer hoped with great fervor the rifling would soon wear out. The rifling in this case being those pimple-like letters and numbers upraised on said “weaponry.” Eventually, of course, they did, but right behind this, in the mail and just in time was another one for her “season.” Her season being endless, timeless, limitless and free; free to her!

Often he would wonder why there wasn’t a waiting period, ala the controversial Brady Bill, for possession of one of those things as there was on handgun purchases? In fact, he wondered so long and hard about this, he was inspired to write to his Congressman and State Representative about it, suggesting adamantly and with aggressive assertiveness they propose some sort of stiff legislation on at least the state level, regarding the highly carefree distribution of credit cards.

Both the congressman and state rep wrote back, responding in a timely manner but, what was strange about the letters is, besides the contents being absolutely identical, they each appeared to be photocopies?

Nonetheless, they stated: “Dear Mr. Parry: I, too, am a hunter. I intimately and clearly understand your just concerns and sentiments. I thank you for writing me with your perceptive suggestion but, I cannot help you.” Then a signature and that was it! “Boom!” as football announcer John Madden would say, “End of letter.”

So their relationship continued in a business-as-usual manner, he’d hunt yonder woods and she’d hunt (more successfully!) the malls of several counties.

One week he tried fashioning her a hat from a coonskin but it resulted in something grossly reminiscent of a roadkill of the worst kind. So, he attempted to make up for this inadequacy as a “fashion designer” by fabricating a purse for her from an old deerhide. Her reaction to this rather attractive creation went something like this: “It’s nice Bwana, but is it not a little big? What did you do, use the entire deer?”

Redfaced, he replied, “Yes. As a matter of fact, but taking into account your shopping extravaganzas, I still felt it may be a bit small!”

His wife, hung un considerably on the fact she had a Master’s Degree in education, and forever feeling she was more precocious than he, said, wearing her familiar smirk, “Why, Bwana! Why don’t we just save it for summer and use it as a tent when we go camping?”

It wasn’t long until he felt a heart to heart talk with her would be in order. During that compassionate effort, he mentioned something to the effect that their pursuits were taking them their separate ways and, in a sense, dissolving their companionship, indeed, relationship! And she, Master of the Tongues of the World, said, “Perhaps a little, Bwana, but fear not. Out love has a yoshi moto.”

Puzzled, he exclaimed, “Yoshi moto! That’s not Swahili!” And certainly it was not, it was
Japanese. After she’d said that, she left him standing bewildered and kissed his cheek while, at the same time, waving the little, rectangular plastic card in his face then, left for the coverts of the mall. He went to his Japanese/English dictionary expecting to find a translation of the snide type and discovered yoshi moto translated to, good foundation. He smiled to himself.

This guy he referred to as Bill Collector became too persistent with his Hey-You’re-Day-Late phone calls which set him to wondering and scheming-again. He pondered the idea of convincing the Gold Card administrative folks to lower his credit limit to say, twenty-five, thirty bucks. But the lady at the east coast headquarters said, “Sir! The card alone is worth more than that!” So, no luck there. What could he do? All he wanted was to enhance their melting relationship and bring the max of the credit card down to some figure with two digits preceding the decimal point.

One late afternoon while on a lonely deer stand with little happening, he thought up a plan. Devious? Perhaps, but seemingly sound, at least at this point.

His rather laconic approach to the upcoming strategy went something like this after his venison-less day in Yonder Wood: “Hi Honey, I’m home! Wherefore art thou, Sweet Pea? Bwana dear is home from Yonder Forest!” His wife came down from upstairs where there was a spare room used exclusively for Gold Card acquisitions; a sort of female “trophy room.” In it were tons of clothing, wagonloads of leather purses, clutches, wallets, shoes and leather boots! Enough, he thought, to fully outfit the people of Bangladesh which, at last report, was in the neighborhood of some 80-million bodies! There seemed enough leather at first glance to an inexperienced eye, to make one conjure the thought of it being cause for the demise of an entire herd of some poor Texan’s Longhorned steers. And wool! Enough that he had trouble keeping her supplied with moth balls!

Why when he first saw all of the wool garments, he thought of a childhood nursery rhyme that went, “Baa, baa black sheep, have you any wool?” Wondering about how they may answer today, the day and age of the Gold Card, he added these words: “No sir, no sir, thanks to the plastic tool!” We’re talking here of having to buy coal cars full of moth balls, and the naphthalene fumes emanating from their upstairs was enough to bring down a Stealth Bomber! Something but something serious must be done and dear Bwana’s plans were put into play somewhat haphazardly, more hurried.

“Well,” he said, “how’s Bwana’s little, mzuri safi ndito?” Beautiful, bright young lady. They sat to talk and he mentioned how she was “…more beautiful than any Mona Lisa.”

“But Bwana, I recall hearing you say the Mona Lisa was a homely wretch?”

“That’s just what I mean, Sweet Pea, if the art connoisseurs of the world think the Mona Lisa is gorgeous, they’d be awestruck with your unparalleled beauty!” Knowing he was once again scheming.

She asked, “Okay, Bwana Punda, what’s up your ragged flannel sleeve this time?”

“Nuttin honey,” he said, thinking how clever that was, “I just came to the decision that you ought to become part of my numerous hunting endeavors, that’s all!” And certainly, love being pretty much what it’s cracked up to be for the most part, she accepted his offer to join him after he suggested buying her her own rifle. “I felt we’d start you out with something small, something you could use for woodchucks here in Pennsylvania but, too, something that would do well on the western front should we go for elk and mulies.” Then, Bwana Punda flashed back into his brain. “By the way, Sweetie, what does punda mean?” She very nonchalantly remarked that punda meant donkey in Swahili at which time he suggested, “Honey, I think I’ll start you out on a .458 Winchester magnum. Nice little caliber for a fragile lady.”

Since he had a .458 of his own, she suggested she try his first, did, and immediately after shooting at a target pinned to an old, wooden chair which sat in their shooting pit, she seemed to have a change of heart; not to mention a huge mouse above her right eye and two precarious fillings in two molars.

Apologizing a thousand times over, he reminded her that she’d forgotten to pull the rifle tight to her shoulder. She was in no receptive mood! “Tight to my shoulder! Just look at that pile of splinters out there that used to be a chair! Why Bwana, it looks like Crater Lake just behind it without the dadblamed water! I’ll select my own all-round caliber if you wouldn’t mind!”

She pored through his library studying ballistics and all aspects of same, from sectional density of various bullets, ballistic-coefficients, feet per second and foot pounds of energy figures and long range trajectories to the energy of the recoils of various calibers. Everything, literally, she could absorb over about a week’s time. Her mind, sponge-like at worst, soaked in more data than any gun writer living today knows. He tested her and she answered questions he didn’t know the answers to-ever! Finally, she came to a decision that made him wince, due to both the intellect surrounding it and the economic nature of it.

“I want us to buy a nice .280 Remington caliber, once referred to as the 7mm Remington Express, in single-action and made by New England Firearms, you know H. & R. 1871 Incorporated? Well, their neat, little Handi-Rifle comes with a recoil pad, sling swivel studs, a scope base and the action is a rugged high tensile steel which has the transfer bar to prevent unplanned discharge and everything. Why, Bwana, the barrel on it looks thicker than those on most big bore rifles, too, and you know what? You can even order other barrels for it for other types of hunting.

She went on for several minutes about the virtues of the rifle she chose. Hard to argue with her desire here is how ol’ Bwana felt after that lengthy dissertation. Why Jim Carmichel or the great, Bob Bell, gun experts extraordinaire, might say something like, “Some gal you’ve got there, Bwana!” And that she was.

The local gun shop phoned soon after her order was placed. “Your wife’s SB two rifle is in, pretty nice lookin’ piece, too, and I guess you know the daggone things shoot like crazy? Whose idea? You tell her t’buy it?” He admitted, reluctantly, he didn’t and hung up.

“Honey, your rifle is in at the Triple-D Gun Shop in Wellsboro, wanna go in to pick it up?”

They went together and while chatting with Wayne, the shop’s owner, she picked out a nifty 3 x 9 power scope. “You do accept the Gold Card don’t you, Wayne?” He did, they left, and daydreams of increased calling from Bill Collector kept him quiet on their way home.

Saturday morning dawned clear and windless. “Honey, wanna sight in your two-eighty today?”

She was ready, and to his pleasure, anxious to try her rifle. “Sweet Pea, remember your promise? You said if I taught you to shoot your new rifle you’d relinquish the Gold Card, right?” She simply submitted, saying “Okay,” handed over The Card and proceeded to situate herself at his (now theirs!) shooting bench.

“Okay Moran, show what to do here please.” At first he thought she’d called him a moron but came to find out later, “moran” mean tribal warrior in Swahili. He was relieved, but deep down knew that either way, she’d have been right.

After minimal adjustments were made, the SB-2 Handi-Rifle was consistently clustering three rounds in well under an inch at their outside spread. “Here ya go, Honey, all ready! Now, you see if you can shoot a group that small. Just do as I instructed you and don’t worry if your initial attempts miss altogether, okay? It’ll come slowly, but it’ll come.”

Not having a spotting scope, to determine where her first three rounds impacted they walked toward the target. “Well, Sweet Pea, that ain’t too shabby! I can see one hole from here, right above the bull and dead center! Good shooting for a new comer!”

As they walked the 100-yards to the target, she casually mentioned some purchases she’d made from one of his mailorder catalogs prior to letting go of the sacred Gold Card.

“I bought long-johns, beautiful all-wool plaid shirts, about a half-dozen, two light-camo coveralls, a pair of insulated camo boots in pure leather, a fluorescent orange jumpsuit for deer season, six pairs of all-wool socks and just a whole bunch of other gorgeous attire, you know, so you’ll be proud of me when we go to deer camp!” And of course he didn’t show it much, but he was elated with her Gold Card prowess, not to mention her ability to decipher the hunting catalogs and their mysterious, very confusing product codes.

They arrived at the target and after close examination; he found that his little hunter-to-be wife and her SB-2 Handi-Rifle worked “together” well enough to put three 139-grainers nearly into the same hole! “Gee, Bwana, it looks like a teeny-weeny three-leaf clover, huh?” It did at that and he forced himself to smile whispering under his breath, “Why me, God?”

“Nothin’ more needed here Sweet Pea, but you know I’ve spent considerable time (say the last 60-seconds?) thinking about this whole idea, given it a lot of serious thought. I mean you huntin’ with me and all. It gets bones-chillingly cold out there! You honestly wanna go through with the idea?”

“Only if it makes you happy, Moran. Why you know it’s the only reason I went along with it in the first place. Sure, I am a little concerned about where a body goes to the little girl’s room but little else.” He casually told her the woods were in fact the world’s largest little girls’ and boys’ room.

“Tell ya what, Hon. I’ll return your Gold Card, you give me your SB-two, two-eighty Remington and we’ll just scratch the whole idea, okay? Geez, Sweet Pea, I can’t stand the thought of your freezing out there just to please me. Deal?” He coughed with the white lie that mildly choked him.

She looked lovingly into his eyes (forewarned this was a hunter’s love story! And yes, I realize how disgusting it all is!) and asked what he would do with all the clothes she’d bought. Then without allowing him time to answer, she asked, “Haven’t you heard the Shakespearean poem about the Gold Card?” She was giggling and of course, he hadn’t and said so. She continued, “It goes something like this Moran. Hear yonder call from the clothing-filled mall, is it not a sound so fantastic! If one yearns to go, just trade your rifle for that rectangular piece of plastic!” And again, they looked longingly into one another’s eyes. His hand grasped the graceful, little single-shot rifle, hers snatched the pimpled Gold Card like a spring-activated, automatic vise and again, soon, they would go their separate ways.

Bwana Punda fell head over heels in love with the tack-driving .280 and didn’t seem to mind too much that most of the clothing she’d bought through his catalogs left an awful lot of skin exposed to cold, sleet, rain and snow and yes, to anyone he might run across in Yonder Wood. Nor did he seem to mind the idea of hunting alone. It was always his way. But the boots? It was them that caused the greatest, most unbearable discomfort of this entire ordeal. It was extremely difficult walking the woods, dawn til dusk with his toes curled backwards and under his feet; rather like a fist of the foot? But, he thought, such is the life of Bwana Punda. “It does mean donkey in Swahili.” He felt he was that and more for giving up the Gold Card without first buying himself a nice, new pair of hunting boots about four sizes larger? Love is blind, as they say, and as the title tells, this is a hunter’s love story of sorts. “I’ll just suffer it out with these boots,” he thought, and indeed with the painful knowledge, boots of this quality have the longevity of granite rocks!

Neighbors complained for some time, they could hear him yelling after days of wearing the tortuous boots. “Honey, please gimme the Gold Card for one measly purchase!”

And certainly, you’ve guessed it. She did just that. In fact her kindness got to the point soon thereafter; she resorted back to calling him, Bwana Masharubu, Mister Moustache.

That is love from a safi moyo, pure heart. The heart of the understanding wife of an All-American hunter who no longer has sore feet or curled toes and, who has regained his uhuru to boot. Uhuru? Means freedom.

Had his wife not shot a very small, 3/8ths-inch group with the .280, things could have turned out very differently


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